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Growing Threats to the U.S. at Sea

With Russia and China expanding their naval capabilities, what can the U.S. do to prepare?

By

James Stavridis

June 2, 2017 8:54 a.m. ET

I spent the formative years of my naval career in cruisers and destroyers during the long twilight of the Cold War. We chased Soviet submarines through the North Atlantic and dodged their intelligence ships in the South China Sea, forever playing a kind of “Hunt for Red October.” The fleet of the U.S.S.R. was massive, dangerously armed and globally deployed—a worthy foe.

Those of us in the U.S. Navy felt a twinge of regret (but only a twinge) as we watched much of that fleet broken apart, mothballed or sold to other...